Falling Chips

The President has canceled his trip to Indonesia in order to push for passage of Castro Care, a government expansion that we can ill-afford. What will it take to close the budget deficit with Obama's runaway spending?

Federal income tax rates would have to be more than doubled across the income spectrum if Congress were to close the deficit in fiscal year 2010, according to a new report from the nonpartisan Tax Foundation. Instead of taxing joint filers with rates ranging from 10 percent to 35 percent, tax rates would have to start at 24.3 percent and reach up to 84.9 percent.

Since no one in Washington wants to reduce spending, doesn't it make sense that we should stop inventing new ways to spend China's money? Oh, I know... the Congressional Budget Office says the health care bill will be a break even over the first ten years, but this represents accounting tricks, not reality. As Republican Paul Ryan says of the legislation...

...it expands entitlement spending by roughly $1 trillion; it hits the American people with over half-a-trillion in tax hikes; it uses Medicare as a piggy bank with over half-a-trillion in Medicare cuts to create a new entitlement; and includes a number of egregious gimmicks that hide the true cost of the bill.

Massachusetts Congressman Steve Lynch joined us this morning on WRKO and said he's voting against the measure (he was a yes vote last time), and expressed his displeasure over the idea of the Deem and Pass approach being planned in the house. He's repeated his position throughout the day.

"There's a difference between compromise and surrender, right? And this is a complete surrender of all the things that people thought were important to health care reform," Lynch told reporters. When asked what might cause him to vote for the bill, Lynch said: "There's one thing. If they put reform back in the health reform bill, that would change my position."

Votes are flipping in both directions however. Yesterday, Luis Guiterrez was a firm no vote because he wants illegal aliens covered. Today, he's with the socialists.

The legislation would provide subsidies to moderate-income Americans to help them afford private insurance coverage. Neither the House nor the Senate bills would have offered subsidies to undocumented immigrants.

The Guiterrez flip was predictable. Lynch's move is viewed as a major defection.

Lynch's decision comes 24 hours after a momentum-building switch by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio), previously a "no" vote who announced Wednesday the president had persuaded him to support the bill.